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What made the Governor sweat?

Actions speak louder than words and the two were a notch higher the other day. The person in question was Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan. Out of the blue, at a TiE event here recently, he said, “I’m nervous and sweating,” and made a series of goof-ups.

He fumbled, misspelt a couple of words and then corrected himself. He said ‘studies have progressed’ and corrected it as ‘societies have progressed’. When he quoted Chinese patriarch Mao-Tse-Tung, he said, ‘Let 100 flowers ‘boom’ and hastily corrected himself.

He quoted Robert Frost in the reverse order - ‘Miles to go before you sleep; the woods are lovely, dark and deep’, making the audience wonder what had made this tough cop nervous.

Appaji Reddem

Kiran’s obsession

Everyone has an obsession for something in life. Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy is obsessed with cricket and rightly so, for he was a Ranji player while in college and makes it a point to mention cricket in most of his speeches.

Linking the State’s bifurcation to cricket and saying the match was not over till the last ball has become so popular that even other political party leaders are now taking him on, using cricketing terms. Recently, the CM again ‘cricketted’, drawing applause from entrepreneurs at a meeting. He said “Nothing comes easily in life like cricket. Limited over cricket has come down to 20 from 60 overs and 50 later. Who knows, it may even come down to 10 overs a side in future.”

B. Chandrashekhar

Reservations in Army

Rule of reservations in the Indian Army? Well, that was what Babu Jagjivan Ram as Defence Minister wanted after the Indo-Pak war in 1971. He also rushed a letter to a top army official to fix responsibility on violators of the rule.The army chief then was Sam Maneckshaw, who should have been sacked because the percentage of SCs and STs in the force was only 0.1 against the required 22. Lt. Gen. S.K. Sinha, former J & K Governor, who dealt with the letter, wrote back to Jagjivan Ram saying SCs and STs exceeded the 22 per cent limit because all the unskilled trades in the force were filled by Chamars, Mochis, Dhobis and Kanjars.

It was only at the level of leadership that their strength was 0.1 per cent. This was revealed by the official himself, Lt. Gen. Sinha, who was Army vice-chief too, on Sunday.